Wednesday, November 14, 2012

4th Grade Animal Enlargements in Oil Pastel

﻿ In fourth grade at Brimfield, we are just finishing these oil pastel animal enlargements. We talked a lot about different kinds of perspectives in art and the students were challenged to create these artworks of extreme zoomed-in perspective. The students used simple viewfinders I made by cutting a 1" x 1" square in the middle of a piece of tag board. They used the viewfinders to select an interesting composition within an animal photograph that they also chose.

When their drawings were complete, we worked really hard on our oil pastel techniques. The students really REALLY looked at their photographs to figure out which oil pastel colors to layer to create creamy and rich artworks. Students were challenged to layer colors on all parts of their artworks; even spaces that just appeared white or black. Even though the end result for many of these artworks is abstract, the students agreed that, for many of them, these are the most realistic artworks they've made!

4th graders ROCK! This is my favorite grade to teach and they always produce the most amazing artworks. Your students have created beautifully nuanced oil pastel masterpieces and you should be very proud!